Doing a line or two

San Francisco can be cold at this time of year. Not Minnesota cold (that's way to cold for any sane person), but California cold. Which means its all of 45F but can feel like a lot less than that. For those of us who live around the area, we get so used to 60-100F for the rest of the year that the 1-2 month dip into the lower 40s just kills you off.

Which is why even I was surprised when we ended up in the 2 hour line to get into the Academy of Sciences last weekend. Never mind the people that were line jumping or place holding. By 10:30am they were already into "meter mode" for both members and regular plebs (1 out in the exit = 1 in the door). Ticket sales were halted by 11:15am. Given the place closes at 5pm, things did not look promising 50-100 people back in line at 11am.

But I guess given the experiences of the long weekend I shouldn't have been. Our 4 day trip into The City seemed to devolve into nothing but standing in line. It didn't really help that we had chosen to go places that had long lines - I'm not sure who's idea it was to go to the Cheesecake Factory on Union Square on a Friday night (another 90 minutes in line there) - that was just asking for it. But there were lines everywhere. It probably didn't help either that we were hitting all the tourist traps at the 2nd biggest city in the area on the last non-school weekend.

I had to throw in the bit about San Francisco not being the biggest Bay Area city. Most people don't know or believe that bit. However, living closer to San Jose - population 200,000 more than San Francisco - you do sometimes wonder what all the fuss is about. But then San Jose isn't glamorous and only has about 3 places worth going. Just in a 2 block radius in SOMA there are more things to do than the whole of San Jose. And to be honest San Jose is really just a 900,000 suburb of a 100,000 area of... not much.

But then having grown up in London (a real city, and really "The City" - forget what SF claims), neither San Francisco or San Jose are really cities, let alone Big Cities. Give them a few hundred years and a couple of million more people each and then we can talk about it.

We did eventually get into the museum. The Aquarium is well worth visiting (although the tunnel walk at the Aquarium of the Bay is better) and they do have the Penguins still. In addition, the Rain Forest area is well worth the wait too - but you will have another 30-45 minute wait in line to get into there as well.

So all in all the weekend in San Francisco just kept ending up in lines. In the end, for the 72 hours we were up there, 8 hours or so were spent in lines. Which I think works out somewhere near 11% or so. (If you include the traffic jam around Golden Gate park on Thursday its a lot more than that but I'm blocking that out).

So with that in mind, I am determined not to be heading up there anytime soon. No more lines or waiting will be on the calendar for a long time. San Jose and the environs will be the entertainment for all for a few years now.

Which is why I am writing this on the train to San Francisco, heading up for a day of work in The City. This time though, there won't be any lines involved.